He knifed her mother, poisoned her children and shot her father, but Susie Newsom Lynch still loved Cousin Fritz. Eight pages of photos accompany this biz arre true account of a first-cousin romance that left nine people dead.

This first title in a thrilling new outdoor mystery series, set in the New Hampshire White Mountains, introduces high school teacher-cum-sleuth Will Buchanan, whose search for a killer throws him into a web of tangled family relations and restless mayhem.

A visit to the Boston home of fellow history buff Gail Adams Wiltshire plunges Millie Kirchner into a battle between two branches of a legendary family, descendants of John, Abigail, and Samuel Adams. Some of Gail's relatives are prominent in the effort to preserve city landmarks, but her cousin Marvin Adams Bailey is a developer with plans to build Crossroads of History, a giant shopping center that will impact a historic neighborhood. The battle over approval of Crossroads plays out in TV interviews and press coverage, and the public poisoning of a civic leader seems related. All Millie's mystery-solving instincts are aroused, and she questions Gail's acquaintances during dinner parties, at public events, while sightseeing and while rehearsing a play Gail's cousin Sam has written. Among Millie's talented fellow actors are Sam himself; Gail's fiancé, Ladd English; his father, restaurateur Todd English; and "Hands on History" guide Katrina Rawls. Millie and Sam share an attraction, though his little-boy pranks annoy her. Marvin also courts Millie, but her near-fatal accident while visiting a construction project with him raises her suspicions. A second death, that of charismatic African-American preservationist Xavier Benedict at a gala to honor Boston's guides, renews Millie's determination to figure out how the deaths are related to the Crossroads project. An enigmatic text--purportedly from Sam--entices Millie to a Revolutionary-era cemetery one evening. Learning she's actually there alone with the murderer, Millie must call on all her wit and skills to save her life.

Aummer 1764. The death of a young poacher has Alec investigating murder. And when renovations to his sprawling manor unearth a secret burial chamber, a shocking family secret comes to light. Everything Alec thought he knew about his birth is again called into question, and with it the special bond with his irascible uncle Plantagenet.

"Part Stephen King, part Suzanne Collins, part Max Brooks, 100% phenomenal!" – David Eastman, author "A gripping tale. Perfectly paced and brilliantly plotted." - Cathy Thompson, author "Stanek's written many good, even great, books. This one's exceptional. Read it!" - Shannon Hale, author "Wonderful action writing. Fast, fun, and smart." - Margaret Brown, author "I can see why Rothfuss doesn't want people to read Stanek. Stanek's a much more capable writer." - Emily Asimov, author "Anyone who enjoyed The Hunger Games, World War Z, or The Maze Runner is going to enjoy this book." - Lisa Gardner, author "What an amazing book! Unique and innovative, captivating to the end." - Mary Osborne, author "This one's memorable and fascinating heroine is someone you're going to love as much as Katniss Everdeen." - Sandra Brown, author Our world isn't ours any more. It's theirs. The human survivors lead a hardscrabble life, scavenging what they can from the dead city, waiting and watching. Cedes isn't like Matthew and his regulars. She dreams. She talks. She questions. She wonders why Luke disappeared, where Luke disappeared to. She wants to know what we are to the machines. This is her story. This is our story. This is the story of us, the humans who survive. In the ruins of our world, a new order arose, an order controlled by the very machines humankind created. The end for us came not from a massive global war but from something unthinkable, incomprehensible. The machines simply replaced us and we let them, and so, in the end, humanity went out not with a bang, but with a whimper. No shots fired. No bombs dropped. No cities destroyed. We ended and the machines began—or at least that is what the few human survivors of the machine apocalypse believe. ### To the machines, we became nothing—except maybe outsiders, if they considered us at all. Outsiders looking in on their reality, for the machines weren’t bothered by our existence, or at least, if they were, they weren’t bothered enough to bother us. They certainly didn’t seem to require anything of us or have any need of us at all—if they had needed us, they probably would have enslaved us. But they hadn’t. Enslaved us that is. The machines hadn’t done anything to us really. Except take over the world—and it was their world now. It certainly wasn’t ours. We were outsiders, strangers really. We looked in on their world. They didn’t acknowledge us. They probably didn’t even consider us a part of their world. Just as we didn’t consider the small things that crawled beneath our feet as part of our world. Matthew told us it wasn’t the machines who killed us. Matthew being the only one here now who remembered when we drove the automobiles, flew on the airplanes, and rode on cars behind the locomotives. He said most of us just died. Us being the human race. I didn’t believe that. I believed we died of neglect. The neglect of the machines. The machines who cared not enough to kill or enslave us. Luke would have called it benign neglect. Luke being the one who taught me to read and write my letters and words. He knew all the fancy words. He taught me everything really. He remembered—I didn’t. Don’t, really. These words—his really as much as my own. But Luke was gone. Is gone really, if you don’t mind me slipping into the present. Luke said it’s wrong to slip from past to present or present to past, but I do. The present is—and Luke isn’t. The past was—and sometimes I can see it. ### After the Machines is a story unlike any other you’ve ever read. It’s the story of us, the humans who struggle to survive in a world we no longer control.

Follows the arrival of alien embassies who meet with the United Nations amid human fear and speculation before obscure scientist Dr. Marianne Jenner is secretly invited to visit the aliens and prevent an imminent disaster.